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Death rates from heart disease in women appear to be levelling out and could rise in the future following a decline in recent years, a new study shows.

Researchers analysed deaths in England and Wales between 1931 and 2005 and found that the fall in death rates among women under the age of 50 seem to be slowing.

Peter Scarborough, who authored the study in the journal BMC Public Health, told the BBC: 'What we may be seeing with the figures for women is a plateauing and in the future it may even rise.

'It seems to me that the increased rates of obesity and diabetes are playing a role in this, and if this pattern is emerging in women then it is quite likely we will see the same in men in the future,' he warned.

According to the British Heart Foundation, obesity has increased by 50 per cent in adults over the past decade, and diabetes has doubled in men and increased by 80 per cent in women since 1991.